Talk:Phillips Code

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POTUS and SCOTUS[edit]

The article states these originated from Phillips code, which is dubious. According to the linked info, 'President' is PR, 'of the' is F, and Supreme Court is SCT. Seems likelier that the acronyms were added to the code than originating therein. Carolina wren (talk) 20:36, 25 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Note that POTUS and SCOTUS also both appear in linked info. Also, while PR F US would be a suitable abbreviation, POTUS is shorter in morse:

.--. --- - ..- ... (POTUS)

.--. .-. ..-. ..- ... (PR F US)

Cheers, SDS (talk) 02:15, 26 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

ADDG?[edit]

Is ADDG in the exmamples supposed to be ABBG? I ask because the previous section mentions "Abb - Abbreviate". – Þjarkur (talk) 00:16, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Also the reason I came here. Anyone with a full copy of the code able to confirm?

(Also whether "madison square roof garden" would genuinely translate to "MU ROOF GARDEN", as the first code seems a rather curious choice especially given that "MU" is also used for "murder" in the same sentence, and both "roof" and "garden" are surely common enough to warrant abbreviation, and unlikely to be confused for any other word when compressed - there's little else that could be implied by "RF" or "GDN"... Possibly that's what the newspaper literally printed, but the cited source simply gives its own plain text rendering, which may be typoed - there's no reproduction of the actual print - and doesn't itself give any leads to primary sources so could well be knitted of whole cloth. My attempts to google up the relevant page of classic newsprint have so far hit a dead end, even though I can find plenty of material on the murder itself, and reproductions of other relevant headlines...) 146.199.0.164 (talk) 17:48, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

((FWIW - neither of the links to the actual Phillips Code are usable; one is a dead site that's been taken over by roulette adverts, and the other is an extremely patchy Google Books preview (three letterbox-like excepts out of the middles of single pages), but if we assume the Evans Code PDF is a reasonably good guide ... then "MU" stands only for Murder and nothing else; Garden is represented by "GDEN", Roof by "ROF", and Square by "SQU" ("SQ" and "RF" being reserved for other things, though it's not clear why "GDN" wasn't usable). We also have Made becoming "MD", and Son remains "SON", with no locales more specific than the world and the USA's twenty or so largest cities getting specific codes... but there being plenty of room to make up your own if you think they'll be easily comprehended at the other end (indeed, the practice is encouraged, so long as you avoid certain, specifically marked out, easily confused two-letter combinations that clash with morse prosigns). Therefore, "MDSON SQU ROF GDEN" would surely have been a preferable, clearer, and only slightly longer alternative to "MU ROOF GARDEN", if we assume either the recipient is savvy enough to adjust "Madeson" into "Madison", or that the slight typo won't be much of an issue in a period where the spelling of place names was still often an inexact science and it was usually enough for it to sound roughly correct...?))146.199.0.164 (talk) 18:18, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In fact ... reading the code in relation to the original query, I'd say you (Þjarkur) are right; it gives Abbreviate, in its own right and as a root for other words, as ABB. The common -ing suffix, plus whatever modifications are required to the root to make it fit, are reduced to -G. Thus, Abbreviating becomes ABBG (and Abbreviation is ABBT). Curiously, there's nothing in there for ADD, even though you'd think it might be "addition" or similar, though there is ADDR for Address.

Similarly we can have further fun with "Madison"; the -sion suffix is reduced to -N, so if we assume our recipient can unscramble "Madesion" or "Madesome", it can be encoded as "MDN" or "MDSM", saving at least one or maybe two further letters. Though some caution may be required given code collision - it could also decode to Madecation, or maybe even Medication. However, the variety of things that an -N suffix could imply does sort of suggest that a degree of interpretation was expected on the receiving end... 146.199.0.164 (talk) 18:32, 12 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Star didn't err?[edit]

Regarding the assertion that the Kansas City (MO) Star's "news desk should have transcribed" the Phillips code fragment about the Thaw trial: I think this is based on a misreading of the cited web page (World Wide Words), which says only that the fragment appeared in the Star, not that it failed to be translated. I have not been able to find any evidence of accidental printing of Phillips code in the Star in 1910.

However, throughout the summer of that year both the Thaw code fragment and its translation appeared in various newspapers and magazines across the US, in an article whose subject was the Phillips code itself. The article gives a brief history of the code and offers numerous examples of coded material, along with their translations. As was not uncommon at that time, many editors made cuts and other modifications when they reprinted the article. The abbreviation for "Madison Square," for instance, appears variously as "Msq," "Ms," and "MS." (I have not been able to corroborate the "Mu" given in World Wide Words and suspect it may be a typo.)

Dating the article, which carries no byline that I can find, is problematic. It contains a reference to Abdul Hamid II that could not have been written earlier than April 1909. The Thaw trials, said to be "now in progress," took place in early 1907 and early 1908.

Frustratingly, though the article was widely reprinted, I have not been able to find it in the Star. Even if it should be found there, is there any evidence that it originated there? The reprint in Nashville (TN) Banner, 9/9/1910, p. 9, cites the Star, as does the somewhat shorter version in the magazine The Writer 22:9 (Sep. 1910), p. 140-41. But other versions do not, including the earliest version I've seen (Indianapolis (IN) Sun, 6/28/1910, p. 2)—which is also the most complete version I've seen. To the contrary, that version includes two mentions of the Sun by name and two references to news items of the previous day . . . though it's possible those elements were added to an existing story. Dave Zobel (talk) 08:50, 16 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]